In a six-year study interviewing 104 transfer-intending students, Jabbar, an associate professor at the , said viewing transfer issues solely as a community college problem only “moves the needle a little bit.”

“A lot of these existing reforms that focus on community colleges do help,” Jabbar told ����Ӱ��. “But it doesn’t address the larger problem if universities are not helping students.”

The students, who attended either Central Community College or the Fernando Community College System in Texas, experienced many difficulties in transferring — from credit loss to inadequate career advising.

“Community colleges don’t have the power to say whether those credits subsequently transfer or whether the student is admitted to a university,” Schudde, an associate professor at , told ����Ӱ��. 

“And if that information is not readily available or changes, then any guidance they have offered to students goes out the window.”

In their “Discredited: Power, Privilege, and Community College Transfer,” Schudde and Jabbar argue that transfer policy is a complex public higher education issue rather than an isolated community college problem.

“Most research is really focused on the hurdles, the information problems and the barriers within community colleges,” Jabbar said. “[But] we can’t solve the problem of community college transfer without also holding universities accountable and bringing them in.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The book began with the story of Teresa — a Latina, 19-year-old community college student raised in Texas — who planned to transfer to a four-year college but was left confused about the steps she needed to take to do so. Can you tell me more about how her experience speaks broadly to the often confusing student-transfer pathway?

Jabbar: There were so many stories, but Teresa exemplified the kinds of experiences that we heard and revealed it wasn’t just that there were hurdles along the way. Oftentimes we hear about students’ life experiences, such as working to support family members, that are obviously barriers to transfer. But there were also these institutional barriers — and not just at the community college level.

For Teresa, it was after she transferred that she was like ‘wait a minute, these policies don’t line up.’ And she expressed the frustration that a lot of our students felt when she talked about how she wished these institutions would just get together and come up with some kind of agreement that would make the process more streamlined. That’s why we highlighted her story.

Schudde: I would add that in a lot of research she might be viewed as a success story. Most research looks at transfer-intending students and if they transferred. But when you only look at this you miss everything that happens in the process. 

As we followed students, we did get to see some actually graduate and get their bachelor’s degree. But Teresa’s case helped us highlight that even the success story has things that go on within it that are really challenging for students to deal with.

Your work takes a closer look into more than 100 transfer-intending community college students who attended either Central Community College or the Fernando Community College System in Texas. Was there a reason why you sampled this student population?

Schudde: Huriya and I worked together at The University of Texas at Austin in the department for education leadership and policy. Huriya started there a year before me and was working on a project studying community college students that were interested in transferring. When I arrived, I was working on a project that was studying the personnel who worked with those transfer students to understand how they’re making sense of transfer policies in Texas.

We started talking and realized we could merge these two things. She also had a sample of over 100 community college students — that’s a big deal. So we ended up pursuing more funding and followed those students for six years.

The majority of students in the sample identified as Latino because that is what the majority of students in Texas, particularly at community colleges, identify as. And most students in the sample also come from low-income families.

Jabbar: In most states, the vast majority of students starting at a community college are low-income students and often students of color. So in many ways our sample aligns with the general population of community colleges across the country.

The book illustrates how transfer success is closely tied to how well college institutions confront “overt and hidden barriers” — from credit loss to flaws in career advising. From your research, where do you see the largest opportunities for college leaders at two-year and four-year institutions to improve their transfer outcomes?

Jabbar: We see the problem as somewhat different than it has been talked about in the past. Most research is really focused on the hurdles, the information problems and the barriers within community colleges. Our argument is that we can’t solve the problem of community college transfer without also holding universities accountable and bringing them in. We need to move from viewing this as a community college problem to a public higher education problem.

Schudde: So many of the reforms to date have focused on community colleges and it’s like moving the needle the tiniest amount. That’s because the community colleges don’t have the power to say whether those credits subsequently transfer or whether the student is admitted to a university. And if that information is not readily available or changes, then any guidance they have offered to students goes out the window. It had no meaning. 

There’s a bunch of one-off solutions where we could say to every university ‘we really want you to build these reliable transfer agreements with your most common feeder community colleges’ but it feels like those recommendations have not been effective in the past. Especially because some of the most powerful universities feel like ‘well why should I have to do that?’ And we’re talking about public universities here where they should think of themselves as part of this public higher education ecosystem. 

What we would like to see is a mandate for an associate degree that transfers. Something that would allow someone from a community college to move into a public university and know that they’re going to be at junior status as long as they have the 60 credits. That would require action from university actors because they would have to decide how those credits count.

The reason why I’m emphasizing some sort of state government action is because there’s been all this research the past several decades about community college transfer but no action has happened when it’s left up to universities. They don’t have incentives to do that. There’s also this tension between whose credits are going to count towards the degree because there’s money involved. There would need to be some legislative action, which we’ve seen in some states, that would require university actors to make these changes and take some accountability.

My understanding is that a majority of Texas community colleges utilize the guided pathways advising model. How has this influenced the transfer student experience?

Schudde: When we first started talking to students, that was when the guided pathways advising model was coming out. There was some movement but the community colleges had not fully adopted it when the first and second wave of interviews started. Around the third year we started seeing staff mentioning that the advising models were changing. 

That guidance has been helping but something we do say in the book is that the challenge is still there. If all the community colleges are adopting this but the university that a student goes to is unaware or doesn’t care to know what classes they took, then it doesn’t necessarily help the student. 

That thread has to carry all the way through into the bachelor’s degree. So for this reform to actually make a large impact on getting a bachelor’s degree, we need to see the universities are also adopting, or at least recognizing, those courses that they have to take in their first two years.

Jabbar: A lot of these existing reforms that focus on community colleges do help and move the needle a little bit. Students are getting better advising, or more frequent advising, and they’re being guided while in community college. But it doesn’t address the larger problem if universities are not helping students.

Schudde: Guided pathways is probably the biggest reform community colleges have seen in a long time. But in most cases I don’t know if it’s getting to the university. Unless it’s a university that works really closely with their local community college, it doesn’t seem like a lot of them are really aware that students are being guided to take this set of core courses. Which means that, ideally, those core courses would also be the universities prerequisites for the major’s coursework. So that’s why that connection to the next set of institutions is so important.

It goes without saying that racial and socioeconomic equity and access in higher education plays a role in transfer success. How does this tie in with the findings in your book?

Schudde: The reason why this ties in so much with ongoing conversations, especially about racial equity in higher education, is because universities aren’t really able to use all the same tools that they used to use in admissions processes. We have this other public higher education system, community colleges, that have really had a democratizing effect — allowing greater access for students from low-income families to students of color. Historically, that’s who they’re serving. 

We didn’t necessarily see major differences across race but there were some across social class. There were some students who had more connections to other people that had navigated the transfer process and been to a university. Those sorts of things helped them figure out who to talk to and what they needed to know in order to take the right classes. 

The gist of our argument, and how it relates to equity, is we need to make these pathways easier to navigate. Under the current context, it’s not easy for them to do that which means we’re really limiting the power of our higher education systems to help with social mobility.

Jabbar: The goal would be that policy remedies can help address the uneven information access and social capital that students coming in have. Institutions should be able to address that and even it out. The existing system is really disadvantageous to community college students who seek to get a bachelor’s degree. 

We really do believe institutions can support students in achieving those goals, but right now they’re not. And because they are disproportionately low-income and students of color that’s where they reproduce existing inequities.

After working on this book, what would you say was your most surprising takeaway?

Jabbar: The main argument of this book is not something I thought we were going to make going into it. I really thought we were going to focus on community colleges. What are the barriers within community colleges? And how can we improve systems within community colleges? I don’t think I realized just how powerful universities were in creating some of the problems that we were seeing in the community colleges. So it was a surprise to me when we looked at the data.

Schudde: Some of the things that surprised me was how candid some of the university actors are when we talked to them about this. So it’s not that I’m surprised by the findings, but I expected some of them to be more guarded about it. It was very explicit in some conversations where it’s basically complete acknowledgement of gatekeeping. That was shocking for me.

What’s something people aren’t talking enough about regarding the state of transfer policies?

Schudde: I would say more questions about how we change the minds of university actors. And this is not to say I believe they have ill will. This idea of gatekeeping is very much them prioritizing what they see as maintaining the rigor of their programs. Huriya and I are both university faculty so we’ve seen what it’s like to be on this side. We have those conversations. It happens. 

A lot of the burden turns back to what community colleges can do whereas I believe the bigger question is how we get the universities to be willing partners. Or at least be policy change compliance partners and help them see that there are some benefits for everyone if we make these changes.

Jabbar: There might be some interest convergence opportunities here with the bans on affirmative action and institutions still committed to admitting a diverse population. If we can help them see that community colleges could be one pathway to doing that, that’s one place to shift their perceptions. 

One of the big things for me that is interesting about this study is understanding the cost of decentralized policies that give more autonomy and flexibility, but often put the burden on historically marginalized students and families. 

Schudde: Our proposal is basically trying to centralize some of these decisions. The processes would still remain within a university, but they would be mandated to take those community college credits and could still have the autonomy to decide how they count. Especially in Texas, which is a state that has really prioritized institutional autonomy and decentralization, that might be a harder pill to swallow than in some other contexts. 

I do agree with Huriya that we could really see it play out at the individual level. Not just students but also advisors at the community colleges and universities are trying to make sense of every institution’s set of policies. It’s just not manageable at the individual level so there’s a reason why there are benefits to centralizing some of these decisions.

Benjamin Gregory, a former community college student, managed to graduate with an associate degree and transfer to a four-year school despite the challenges of enrolling as an older student.

And for Loren Van Tilburg, earning a four-year degree came to a halt when he left college and started his own automobile business.

From financial concerns to questioning the need of a four-year degree, Jennifer, Benjamin and Loren represent many students who were left unprepared to make their college decisions as the path to earn a four-year degree continues to be riddled with barriers.

“If you have some understanding of what you want to make of yourself and you have a plan to apply your skills, leaving college can be the best thing for you,” said Loren, who like many of his peers has had a growing interest in immediate employment and apathy for a four-year education.

Here are the experiences that led to Jennifer, Benjamin and Loren’s college decisions:

Jennifer Toledo, 19

Northwest Vista College

Growing up in Mexico, Jennifer always wanted to live in the U.S. and finally got her chance when she moved to San Antonio, Texas by herself when she was 15 years old.

But there were challenges — including when her high school stopped offering ESL classes — forcing her to learn English and complete schoolwork on her own.

“It was hard,” Jennifer told ����Ӱ��. “I was using the translator on my computer [because] I didn’t know how to say anything.”

But Jennifer’s experience changed when she took an education class in high school and the teacher helped her learn English.

Intending to join the U.S. Navy post-high school, Jennifer’s teacher encouraged her to enroll in classes at Northwest Vista College instead.

Today, Jennifer has earned her associate degree in teaching and will transfer to The University of Texas at San Antonio in the fall.

Her goal is to earn a bachelor’s degree in bilingual education so she can teach the ESL classes she was unable to receive as a high school student.

“I really want to help students,” Jennifer said. “I want to be that teacher who speaks and teaches them English.”

But Jennifer said navigating her transfer experience was “stressful” because she was balancing her studies with working part-time at a local middle school.

“At some point, I wanted to quit [and] go back to Mexico to stay with my family because of the stress,” Jennifer said.

Jennifer attributes the counseling offered at her community college as one of the support systems that helped her stay afloat.

“I needed help, I needed someone to listen to me and tell me ‘you’re okay, everything’s going to be fine,’” Jennifer said.

Her hope for other students is that they don’t allow their inability to speak English to hinder their higher education goals.

“I want to demonstrate to my family, and to everyone, that it’s possible,” Jennifer said. “I want to be an inspiration for them so they know there’s no limit to what they can do.”

Benjamin Gregory, 27

The University of Texas at San Antonio

Benjamin graduated high school in 2014 and enrolled at Texas A&M University where he majored in aerospace engineering.

But he was more focused on getting a “PhD in partying” and left school after a semester to join the workforce.

He spent three years working as a Target employee followed by one year as a mall security guard — where a physical altercation with a thief altered his life.

“Being a security guard was such a terrible experience for me because I hate being mean to people,” Benjamin told ����Ӱ��. “I got reprimanded for laying my hands on someone who on the [security footage] obviously attacked me and I ended up quitting my job.”

His parents encouraged him to “give college another shot.”

“This path working an hourly job as a security guard and as a retail worker wasn’t for me. I really didn’t like doing it, but it was just something I had to do to live, pay for food and rent and all that,” Benjamin said. “I just wanted a clean slate.”

In 2019, Benjamin enrolled at Northwest Vista College and eventually transferred to The University of Texas at San Antonio where he majored in mechanical engineering.

“I went from working a job where I didn’t really have to do anything besides walk around a mall…to having homework again,” Benjamin said, adding how grateful he was to have a second chance to take courses in what he is truly passionate about.

But navigating college as an older student without a paycheck came with challenges — most notably how to pay tuition on top of his other bills, including car payments and credit card debt.

“I didn’t know if I was actually going to be able to stick with it the whole time,” Benjamin said. “But fortunately enrolling in community college first was significantly cheaper and a lot more relaxed because [professors] know there’s other things outside of school that students have to worry about.”

Enrolling in community college first offered him a better transition back into higher education, he added.

“The class sizes were so much smaller so you could get to know your professor very easily,” Benjamin said. “And they don’t really do research at a community college so they were a lot more excited to show up to class than a lot of professors you will meet in a university.”

Benjamin recently graduated with his bachelor’s degree and will continue his studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio — but instead of a “PhD in partying” he’ll be working towards a doctorate in chemical engineering.

“I know that classes can sometimes suck…but I’ve been in the workforce without a degree and I know that sucked a lot more,” Benjamin said. 

“I’m thankful to my community college for the professional development and helping me be a more open person,” he said. “It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

Loren Van Tilburg, 19

University of La Verne

Loren originally enrolled at the University of La Verne and majored in economics, but quickly grew disinterested in his studies.

After his first year, Loren made the decision to leave his four-year school and get a job.

He experimented with a few ways to earn income — from day trading to dropshipping — but found his real passion was taking care of cars.

In 2023, Loren started a car detailing business which involves traveling to his clients’ home to clean and repair their vehicles.

“I won’t sugarcoat it, the decision was very difficult,” Loren told ����Ӱ��. “But at the end of the day, I knew that I wanted to start a business and I wouldn’t need a degree for it.”

While balancing his budding business, he also began working with a brokerage firm to become a financial advisor, which involves studying for a securities license he aims to complete by the end of the year.

Loren’s desire for on-the-job training and trade certification compared to a four-year degree reflects the mindset of a growing number of young students.

“I’ve always wanted to do something like this because managing money makes money,” Loren said, adding that many of his coworkers had similar educational pathways.

“It’s a cool environment to be in,” Loren said. “So if anyone chooses the path that I chose, it’s really good to find a community of people that made similar life choices because they will understand where you’re coming from and your struggles.”

For Loren, leaving his four-year school was the best decision he could make for himself despite initial pushback from his parents. 

“There have been ups and downs, but I definitely don’t regret my decision,” Loren said.

“For me, if I have to resort to going back to school then I failed,” he added. “I’m not saying if you go to college you’re a failure, but I chose this path for myself so if I go back then I kind of just wasted all this time.”

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

The data, released by the and the , found about one-third of community college students transfer to a four-year school with less than half graduating within six years — equating to the net completion rate of 16 percent.

But the report, in collaboration with the , saw even smaller completion rates for students who are Black, Latino and low-income at 9, 13 and 11 percent respectively.

John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center, said this is because the transfer system is “riddled with barriers” from the historic lack of collaboration between community colleges and four-year schools.

“It’s not an equitable system when we rely on [community college] students to come in with knowledge of this hidden curriculum on how to transfer instead of holding institutions responsible for creating clear pathways and adequate advising along the way,” Fink said.

The confusion and lack of clarity has added to students’ growing disdain for working towards a four-year degree as recent enrollment gains come particularly from community colleges with a vocational program focus, Fink said. 

“The [transfer system] largely replicates existing societal inequities,” Fink said. “The folks who are going to community college in large numbers are from communities that have historically had less access to bachelor and graduate degrees — like low-income and students of color.”

“If there’s no additional resources and support to make up for this, you can expect to see these disparities in completion outcomes,” Fink said.

Disparate Bachelor’s Degree Outcomes

The report showed mixed four-year completion outcomes from community college transfers demographically, Fink said. 

Low-income, Black and Latino students saw completion rates below the national average, in addition to men and students 25 years or older.

But high-income, Asian and White students saw completion rates above the national average, in addition to women and students 18 to 19 years old.

Fink said completion rates have increased slightly compared to previous years — jumping from 14 percent in 2016.

But he noted the increase is “not a lot [and] definitely not where we need it to be.”

“There is so much potential here to create greater economic mobility, to further diversify student bodies and to bring in community college transfers that can perform at the same if not higher rates than non-transfer students,” Fink said.

Fink said creating a “sense of belonging” on campus and expanding core practices such as dual enrollment will greatly improve transfer completion outcomes.

“Visibility, belonging and inclusion are important things to think about in order to change some of these dismal outcomes nationally,” Fink said.

‘Exclusionary’ Transfer Practices 

Dr. Marielena DeSanctis, president of the , said the completion disparities for students from low-income backgrounds are troubling.

“There’s plenty of data that speaks to more and more jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree, so it’s concerning when you start limiting the number of people that can attain one,” DeSanctis said.

DeSanctis, who previously worked at , said Florida has a very different landscape for students to transfer from a community college to a four-year school compared to Colorado.

“There was no question that the courses you were taking were going to transfer and that it was going to be equivalent credits [but] here in Colorado that’s not the case,” DeSanctis said, noting the harm of “exclusionary” transfer practices she’s noticed from four-year schools.

“Because community colleges tend to be more racially and ethnically diverse, we should be telling students that community college is a vehicle to transfer to a university — particularly students that are ready to change the trajectory of their lives,” DeSanctis said. 

Debi Gaitan, vice president of student services at , agreed with DeSanctis, adding that constraints placed on students from low-income backgrounds shouldn’t hinder them from having access to a four-year school whether they decide to transfer or go straight into the workforce.

“San Antonio is very much a city where we can see where our communities of poverty reside and they feed directly into our institutions,” Gaitan said, noting that her students are often part-time, caring for family members and working to make ends meet.

“We want to ensure the stigma of not completing is not placed on this population,” Gaitan said. “It’s more about ‘did they reach their goal of being able to get a better job with better income to get out of poverty.’”

Gaitan said it’s important for both community colleges and four-year schools to actively reach out to students from low-income backgrounds.

“Students that have choices and are resourced know about us and know what we have to offer,” Gaitan said. “Therefore we need to shift to the communities that don’t know we’re here…[because] students from intergenerational cycles of poverty need those same resources our upwardly mobile, higher income communities already have.”

Gaitan said resources that have been effective in her community include counseling programs and “apartment starters” where students have access to microwaves, washing machines and other household needs so they can focus on their studies.

“These are communities that need us to be different and need us to be doing more,” Gaitan said. “We want as many people in higher education to know this as possible because that’s how we have learned and that’s how we have adopted and adapted some really promising practices.”

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

The found community colleges led overall undergraduate enrollment growth in the fall of 2023 by 2.6 percent, or 118,000 students, compared to the previous year.

Community college gains were carried by those with a vocational program focus — pointing to students’ growing disdain for working towards a four-year degree.

“We have shortages in a lot of jobs that require bachelor’s degrees,” said Josh Wyner, founder and executive director of the , including well-paying careers in nursing, teaching and software engineering that pay north of $50,000 annually.

“So when we see students entering community college not in those liberal arts programs that lead to bachelor’s degrees, it’s troubling,” Wyner said, adding that a vocational degree won’t provide the long-term financial payoff that would more likely come from a four-year education.

Career-Driven Programs Lead Enrollment Growth

Community colleges with a vocational program focus grew 16 percent in the fall of 2023 compared to the previous year’s 3 percent gain — bringing them above their pre-pandemic enrollment by nearly 30,000 students.

But, transfer-focused community colleges only grew slightly by 0.2 percent in the fall of 2023 compared to the previous year’s 1.1 percent drop — continuing their pre-pandemic enrollment decline by more than 500,000 students.

“There’s fewer community college students entering a transfer pipeline that we can’t afford to lose,” said John Fink, a senior research associate at the .

This trend comes as community colleges remain in a “very deep hole” because their uptick in enrollment doesn’t come close to pre-pandemic numbers, he added.

The report found community college growth in the fall of 2023 brings current enrollment to about 4.5 million students.

Popular programs include computer science, business and health that grew by 9.1, 3.5 and 2.4 percent respectively. 

But, there were more than 5.2 million students enrolled pre-pandemic — leaving community colleges with a net loss of nearly 700,000 students.

“Community college growth is certainly an encouraging sign, but there’s still a long way to go to get back to where we were,” said Jeremy Cohen, a research associate at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Despite the growing number of companies no longer requiring job applicants to have a four-year degree, their hiring behavior hasn’t changed, Wyner said.

“The majority of good jobs in our country are populated by workers that have a bachelor’s or greater,” Wyner said. “So if students aren’t enrolling in community college programs that align with attaining a bachelor’s, we’re going to really struggle filling job vacancies in the future.”

Wyner said the main factor community college-goers rely on to decide whether a four-year degree is worth pursuing is “word-of-mouth” experiences from current students.

“If a student leaves [a four-year] college without a degree or with a degree that didn’t give them a better life than they would have had if they never attended, they’re going to go back to their communities and when people ask if it was worth it their answer is going to be no,” Wyner said. 

“So the decisions we’re seeing them make may be entirely rational because the educational system keeps failing far too many of them,” he added.

Transfer Student Declines Impact Four-Year Schools

This trend has implications for four-year institutions that rely on transfer students as part of their enrollment strategy, Fink said. 

“It might seem like this is a community college issue, but that’s going to translate in years forward to many four-year institutions,” Fink said.

Wyner added how leaders at four-year institutions need to play their part in correcting community college enrollment declines.

“Instead of lamenting the fact that student enrollment in community colleges has come down, four-year schools need to lean in and do something about it,” Wyner said, such as emulating Northern Virginia Community College’s that provides dual enrollment and guaranteed admission at George Mason University.

He said their program transfers more than 4,000 students every year to George Mason University and has a graduation rate of over 70 percent — higher than the national undergraduate average of .

“If you create really strong pathways for students, they’ll come back to community colleges,” Wyner said.

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

WASHINGTON — Community colleges and four-year universities can work together to improve the transfer student experience, a data report from the U.S. Department of Education suggests.

The U.S. Department of Education released  about the institutions where transfer students have the highest graduation rates in each state, with New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia doing the best. At the other end were South Dakota, Delaware, Indiana, New Mexico, and Louisiana.

The announcement of this report came in conjunction with a November summit featuring  of higher education leaders, at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia.

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The Department of Education data highlighted an ongoing problem of poor graduation outcomes among college transfer students.

While attending community college has become increasingly common for students in recent decades, schools have not accommodated their practices to match this demand, said Josh Wyner, who is a founder and executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute.

“When community colleges only educated a small percentage of Americans back in the 1950s and before, there just weren’t a lot of students that were starting at community college and moving onto a four-year school,” Wyner said.

Today, about  attend community colleges, Wyner said, and most of them plan to earn a bachelor’s degree.

In a  announcing the Northern Virginia summit and data report, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said there needs to be increased support for transfer students.

“Our current higher education system stacks the deck against community college students who aspire to earn four-year degrees — denying acceptance of their credits, forcing them to retake courses, and ultimately making their educational journeys longer and costlier than they need to be,” Cardona said in the press release.

Pairing two-year and four-year institutions

The Department of Education data also focus on the “dyads,” or community college and four-year institution pairings, that have the highest graduation rates for transfer students.

The report particularly highlights the “top-performing” partnership between Northern Virginia Community College, known as NOVA, and George Mason University’s  program. George Mason is a public four-year institution in Fairfax, Virginia.

ADVANCE, launched in 2018, aims to improve the transfer experience and graduation rates for students, said Jennifer Nelson, director of university transfer and initiatives at NOVA.

Of the students who transferred from NOVA to George Mason University, 13% graduated with a bachelor’s degree within eight years, according to the Department of Education.

Jason Dodge, the executive director of ADVANCE at George Mason University and NOVA, said there are about 4,500 students in the ADVANCE program.

Nelson said that when ADVANCE was first developed in 2017, four key goals were defined to help transfer students. These goals “tend to be the hallmarks” of why students participate in the program, Nelson said.

First, the program seeks to increase associate’s and bachelor’s degree attainment for transfer students, since “completion leads to completion,” Nelson said. The program aims to decrease the amount of time spent earning a degree, as well as lower the cost to do so, Nelson said.

The fourth goal of the program is to increase support for transfer students, including academic advising, Nelson said.

Nelson and Dodge said the ADVANCE program’s collaboration between schools is what makes it special.

“This is a 50/50 program,” Nelson said. “Every decision that’s made regarding this program is a joint decision.”

Support for transfer students

Nelson said the ADVANCE program offers a “streamlined admission process” for community college students seeking to transfer from NOVA to George Mason.

Students join the program early in their time at NOVA, before they have completed over 30 credit hours, Nelson said. Transfer students can spend “no more than five minutes” to complete the ADVANCE program’s free declaration form, Nelson said.

The final part of a student’s onboarding process is to select a curricular pathway, or their major, Nelson said. This pathway serves as a “guide” for transfer students as they work to earn their associate’s degree and move on to George Mason University, Nelson said.

There is no transfer application or application fee for students in the ADVANCE program, which makes the transition process “seamless” for students, Dodge said.

ADVANCE offers financial aid specifically for these transfer students, and has so far awarded over $2 million in scholarships and grants to participating students at NOVA and GMU, Dodge said.

In addition to having an academic adviser and access to resources at both institutions, students in the ADVANCE program have a coach. This coach “serves as a student’s primary point of contact for the program,” Nelson said.

Nelson said the coach helps make sure the students are sticking to their pathways and taking the right classes, as well as helps connect students to resources at both institutions.

These certified coaches recognize “that what happens outside of the classroom has a direct impact on a student’s ability to excel inside of the classroom,” Nelson said.

Patterns in transfer student data

Wyner said he sees “similar patterns” between his research with the Community College Research Center on National Student Clearinghouse data and the Department of Education’s data.

The data collected from the National Student Clearinghouse represent 90% of college students, which is more inclusive than the Department of Education’s data report, Wyner said. The Department of Education’s data only represent students who receive financial aid, he said.

Wyner was a presenter at the Department of Education’s November summit at NOVA.

The first pattern, Wyner said, is that both data sets showcase low graduation rates for community college students transferring to four-year universities.

The second pattern is “incredibly variable bachelor’s attainment rates among dyads of institutions,” Wyner said, and these variations exist even within state lines.

“That huge variation, even within states, says that what matters is institutional practice,” Wyner said.

Wyner said that while state policies can make a difference, it’s concerning that “some institutions are doing radically better than others” within the same state. This is “troubling,” he said, because a student’s chance of graduation appears to be tied to the dyad they attend.

If a transfer student attends a community college-university pair with lower graduation rates, that student has “a very small chance of getting a bachelor’s degree,” he said.

“It shouldn’t be a matter of luck as to where you enter community college, in terms of whether you’re ultimately going to get a bachelor’s degree,” Wyner said.

Ensuring success

Wyner said that after the Pell Grant program was established in the 1970s, community college enrollment “dramatically increased” after primarily serving as “access institutions.”

Despite this surge of community college enrollments, “colleges fundamentally didn’t change their practices,” Wyner said.

Community colleges have since been focused on helping students complete their associate degree, but “haven’t worked as hard as they needed to make sure that students succeed after they graduate, that they actually go on to earn the bachelor’s degree that they came for in the first place,” Wyner said.

Four-year universities have primarily focused on first-year student enrollments, Wyner said, even though “the community college population of freshmen and sophomores in our country is as big as the one that starts at four-year schools.”

“Our systems have not caught up to the realities of where students enter college,” Wyner said.

Four-year universities also prioritize first-year students over transfer students when it comes to financial aid, Wyner said.

Steps toward transfer student success

With the Community College Research Center, Wyner has studied the colleges with high and improving success rates of transfer students.

These schools demonstrated three characteristics that made this success possible, he said. The colleges prioritize transfer students, create defined programs of study “that extend from the community college into the four-year school with clear course sequences and strong learning outcomes,” as well as offer advising tailored to transfer students, Wyner said.

The first step to improving transfer student success is for leaders at both community colleges and universities to come together and analyze transfer student population data, Wyner said.

Wyner said that schools can further prioritize transfer students by bringing together faculty from individual areas of study from both the two-year- and four-year colleges for shared discussions. This can help ensure that those programs of study are “perfectly well-aligned” for a smooth transition from the community college to the four-year college, he said.

“They need to sit down and say, ‘Alright, we’re gonna map out exactly the courses students should take, and we’re going to work hard together to make sure that we’re aligned on our expectations for students and that we’re delivering what students need,’ ” Wyner said.

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Sheikh experienced several hurdles, from losing community college credits to inconsistent academic advising, after transferring twice during the pandemic.

“When COVID hit, a lot of the resources I needed were cut off,” Sheikh told ����Ӱ��. “It was a bit of a struggle because I didn’t know the system very well, plus my parents never went to school here, so I was lost figuring out this process.”

As a South Asian immigrant woman, Sheikh’s experience speaks to the thousands of transfer students from marginalized communities who’ve had a difficult time achieving their dream to earn a four-year degree.

According to a new report from the , college transfer enrollment declined by 7.5 percentage points in fall 2022 and 14.5 percentage points since fall 2020 — the equivalent of 37,600 and 78,500 students respectively.

The steepest transfer enrollment drops were observed among lower income students who declined by 10.8 percentage points since fall 2019 — the equivalent of 225,200 students.

There was also a disparate enrollment drop for female transfer students compared to their male counterparts with a decline of 3.5 and 0.7 percentage points respectively in fall 2022 — adding to an overall decline of 9.2 and 3.9 percentage points since fall 2020.

In addition, transfer enrollment fell significantly for Asian, White and Native American students by 8, 6.1 and 3.5 percentage points respectively in fall 2022 — adding to an overall drop of 14.8, 12.2 and 7.8 percentage points since fall 2020.

“Even before the pandemic, that path from community colleges to four-year institutions was riddled with complexities and barriers that would hamstring even the most persistent students,” director Tania LaViolet told ����Ӱ��.

“So when you get the extreme hardships from the last few years and an experience that already isn’t built with you in mind, those things compound…and reflect the data we’re seeing.”

LaViolet said the inequities for lower income students to attend four-year universities needs more attention from policymakers and state leaders. 

“We know it isn’t a matter of if the talent is out there,” LaViolet said. “So how can we design better practices that serve the needs of lower income transfers? There are institutions out there who have done it, but the data shows it’s not happening at scale.”

LaViolet also said the disparities in female transfer enrollment doesn’t surprise her.

“Especially for those who are parenting students, who have families to care for and who have jobs, those real life circumstances combined with a challenging educational environment make it difficult for women to realize their educational goals,” LaViolet said.

Jeff Gold, the associate vice chancellor at the , agreed with LaViolet.

“When a pandemic hits, there’s existential challenges that come first and foremost if you’re caring for a family member, if you’re sick yourself or if you’ve got to go back to work,” Gold told ����Ӱ��. “But there’s certainly one that’s clear — child rearing responsibilities are disproportionately on the female side.”

Gold also said it’s troubling how transfer enrollment drops are not shared equally by students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“We have to remember that we’re still living in incredibly tumultuous times, so there’s a context behind these numbers and they’re not out of the blue,” Gold told ����Ӱ��. “So the fact that the drops for our most historically marginalized students are much larger than our other students is incredibly troubling.”

John Fink, senior research associate at the , pointed out how transfer enrollment drops may “be slowing, but are still moving in the wrong direction.”

Looking forward, Fink believes these enrollment drops have implications for four-year universities that rely on transfer students as a core part of their enrollment strategy.

“Four-year institutions have really taken transfer students for granted,” Fink told ����Ӱ��. “This really should be a wake up call for them to rethink and focus on how they can better partner with their community colleges.”